Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Well Deserved Wildflowers

After the winter we had, it's time for some well deserved wildflowers.

Hepatica sp.,
Liver Leaf, so named because of the shape and spotting on it's leaves.
This is often a semi-evergreen with last year's leaves finally rotting
away just as it flowers. New leaves will soon emerge.

They come in Pink, Purple, Blue, and White. This was the first time I'd seen anything other than white though.

Bloodroot, Sanguinaria canadensis. A member of the poppy family. They flower before the leaf uncurls, clasping it perhaps to hold it up.

They offer an abundance of pollen to pollinators but are lacking in the nectar department. Note how few petals this one has.

Note how many petals this one has. There are double flowering forms that have twice the petals to them, though I'm not entirely certain this is a good example of that as I've seen them with more.

A non-native Windflower, Anemone blanda, I must admit these are very attractive.

They look similar to Bloodroot but come in the same colors as Hepatica.

Anemone blanda, is another nonnative that's a bit more colorful than the native counterpart.

False Rue Anemone, Enemion biternatum, has an ordinary looking white flower but what it lacks in color it makes up for with thick foliage, forming a dense carpet of leaves with flowers all around.

Corydalis sp. flowering unusually early.

Cardamine diphylla, Toothwort.

Claytonia virginica, Spring Beauty.

Jeffersonia
diphylla, Twinleaf. Among the hardest wildflowers to witness in bloom.
The flowers open and quickly shed their petals 8 hours later.

Trout
Lily, Erythronium americanum. These form vast colonies of mostly single
leaves in the springtime. It's said that less than 1% of the population
will flower on a given year. I'm told growing them on hard stones, so
their roots can't grow too deep, is enough to stress them into
flowering. Blooming can otherwise take 15+ years to happen! (For those
that get tired of waiting, the bulbs are edible.)

Trillium pusillum, Small Trillium... which is actually not the smallest species of Trillium but it is pretty small at around 6 inches.